Contingent-Fee Lawyers and Their Clients: Settlement Expectations, Settlement Realities, and Issues of Control in the Lawyer-Client Relationship

One hallmark of Herb Jacob's analyses of criminal courts—extensive consideration of the interaction among actors–was less pronounced in his work on civil justice, which was more focused on institutions and the politics behind the laws that those institutions administered. In the research I report here, my emphasis is squarely on the actors in the civil justice process: the relationship between contingency-fee lawyers and clients, and how that relationship plays out in the settlement process. In Felony Justice, Herb, and his coauthor James Eisenstein, focus on the courtroom workgroup as a case-processing (and, largely, case-settling) machine; clients are relatively peripheral. In my account, clients, both current and future, are extremely important in how the lawyer works to settle cases. In the criminal court workgroup, lawyers do not worry about where future clients will come from because police secure them. In contrast, the contingency-fee lawyer has constant concerns about future clients, and I argue, this concern provides a control over lawyers that prior analyses of the contingency fee have largely missed. This dynamic also may explain why the courtroom workgroups, or court communities, found in the criminal courts do not appear to exist in the civil justice system.     

"It's Darwinism – Survival of the Fittest:" How Markets and Reputations Shape the Ways in Which Plaintiffs' Lawyers Obtain Clients

The survival of a plaintiffs' lawyer's practice depends upon the generation of an ongoing flow of clients with injuries that the civil justice system will compensate adequately. If this requirement is not met, lawyers will leave this aspect of the legal market for more promising ones. If they do, legal services for injured people will be diminished as a result. In order to find out how this personal services legal market is defined and developed, we interviewed ninety‐five plaintiffs' lawyers in Texas. These lawyers use four major strategies to get clients: client referrals, lawyer referrals, direct marketing, and other referrals. What any particular lawyer does is shaped by the geographic market from which clients are drawn, and by the lawyer's reputation. Our findings provide fresh insights for the empirical literature on plaintiffs' lawyers, and they provide an empirical context for assessing the potential impact of changes in the civil justice system, like tort reform, on the ability of plaintiffs' lawyers to obtain clients.     

The consumption of lawyer independence

This paper assumes that lawyer independence is a component of the rule of law and that, as such, it deserves as much protection as does independence of judges. The author posits that lawyer independence can only be protected if lawyers govern lawyers. England and Queensland are cited as examples of jurisdictions that have undermined lawyer independence by adopting lawyer regulatory measures aimed at consumer protection. Canada is cited as a jurisdiction that seeks to preserve lawyer independence by recognising that lawyers who have committed to act in the public interest can satisfactorily regulate other lawyers. The author suggests that lawyer independence is a public trust, that all lawyers are the trustees and that they must resist the implementation of regulatory arrangements that compromise lawyer independence. He proposes a method for dealing with corrupt or complacent lawyer regulators.     

Still standing accused: addressing the gap between work and talk in firms of criminal defence lawyers

This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study investigating the everyday reality of legally aided criminal defence. This is the largest survey of its kind for fifteen years since two competing accounts clashed in this journal. In order to update understanding of this branch of the profession, participant observation and formal interviews are utilised to elucidate something of the health of the lawyer–client relationship as it currently stands. The results challenge the prospect of achieving access to criminal justice, as lawyers degrade their clients. However, this is deemed to be caused by a misalignment of values that might be rectified if lawyers are encouraged to become more ethically self-aware.     

Hero or Villain? Cinematic Lawyers and the Delivery of Justice

This essay is concerned with two specific issues that have as their backdrop the heroic central figure, the trial lawyer. First it considers the role of screen lawyers in seeking to maintain public (in this sense the public is the community within the film) support for the due process of law. The issue is the link between the lawyer and the initiation of the formal legal process. Essentially it is the extent to which the lawyer defends the institution of law. The second part of the piece considers when screen lawyers are permitted to go outside the formal process of law to ensure that the right result is achieved. It examines instances of where lawyers have been prepared to go 'beyond law' to achieve justice. Such acts raise a number of questions concerning how such behaviour affects perception of the legitimacy of the law, professional ethics, and the relationship between law and justice     

辩护律师有效辩护的评价及其实现

审判中心主义是一个刑事诉讼程序内的话语,在该话语体系中,犯罪嫌疑人、被告人的辩护权有效行使是庭审实质化不可缺失的构成要素。我国《刑事诉讼法》第37条的规定是有效辩护的评价标准。评价主体是当事人和法律职业者。辩护律师有效辩护的评价标准,是律师诉讼程序的过程标准,而不是以案件的司法裁判结果为标准。可视性的辩护律师有效辩护的实现方式,是改革现行法庭审判程序的简单化运作模式,改革刑事判决书、裁定书对辩护律师辩护观点的评述,扩大庭审网络同步直播的案件范围,许可被告人以律师辩护无效为由提起上诉,许可辩护律师将未决案件争议点诉诸于公共领域,接受当事人和社会民众的检视。     

Vico and Imagination: An Ingenious Approach to Educating Lawyers with Semiotic Sensibility

Law is a specialized semiotic realm, but lawyers generally are ignorant of this fact. Lawyers may manage meaning, but they also are managed by meaning. Seemingly trapped by the weight of pre-existing signs, their attempts to manage these meanings generally are limited to technical interventions and instrumentalist strategies. Signs have power over lawyers because they are embedded in narratives, a semiotic economy that confronts the lawyer as “given” even though it is dynamic and constantly under construction. Most lawyers do not make meaning through legal narratives; rather, they parrot bits of the controlling narratives in response to certain problems. Because clients often can achieve their objectives when their lawyers crudely manipulate the symbols of law, these endeavors pay very well. Well-paid lawyers tend not to ask too many questions. Consequently, semiotics is, at best, misunderstood by lawyers; more likely it is wholly unknown. A lawyer’s avowed instrumentalism is the very problem to be addressed in this regard. For the scope of discussion, I refer to Vico’s famous On the Study Methods of Our Time and draw my conclusion for the lawyer of our time.     

Prosecutors’ and Defense Lawyers’ Views on the Challenges to a New Trial Waiver System in China

Recently, Chinese government implemented and tested a trial waiver system in 18 large cities during 2016–2018. Using data collected from surveys of prosecutors and defense lawyers in one of the cities, the present study examines the main challenges in the implementation by comparing prosecutor and defense lawyer views. The main issues examined include the legal scope of trial waivers, the lawyer and victim roles in trial waivers, and the risk of corruption and power abuse. The findings indicate that lawyer respondents significantly differed from prosecutor respondents in their views on the issues. Defense lawyers were more likely to adopt a liberal stance and took a critical attitude toward the issues than prosecutors were. Their characteristic responses may well reside in their legal statuses and related interests in the Chinese legal context.

     

论程序正义视域下的中国刑辩律师困境

律师职业自产生之初就与正当程序有着紧密联系,正是程序正义赋予了律师职业以内在的价值追求.但现今的中国刑事辩护律师却处境尴尬：他们参与刑事辩护率低迷;在刑事诉讼中的各项权利难以保障;有时深受社会公众与媒体舆论的怀疑、攻讦,甚至有可能面临牢狱之灾.一系列问题表明,刑事辩护作为司法程序中的重要环节,正日益失去其维护司法公正的的意义和作用.因此,要突破律师现今面临的种种困境,必须在现念上和制度上进一步落实程序正义.     

再论律师在场权——以台湾地区为参照

在台湾地区刑事诉讼中,在场权被视为律师一项独立的权利,具有重要的价值。台湾地区在司法警察、检察官及法官实行某些调查行为时均给予律师以在场权,同时设置一些例外,能够在保障人权与控制犯罪维持一种均衡,此外,与在场权相配套的程序设置也相对比较完善,值得学习与借鉴。     

Criminal defendants' satisfaction with lawyers: perceptions of procedural fairness and effort of the lawyer

At present, procedural justice theory has predominantly been used to explain defendants' satisfaction with the police, courts and prisons. It is unclear to what extent this theory is also applicable to lawyers. This study investigates to what extent (1) criminal defendants are satisfied with their lawyers and (2) procedural fairness characteristics and the effort of the lawyer are related to defendants' satisfaction with their lawyers. Data from the Prison Project were used: a large-scale research project among Dutch criminal defendants (N = 1479). Results suggest that generally, Dutch defendants are very satisfied with their lawyers. Variation in defendants' satisfaction with their lawyers can be attributed for a substantial part to procedural fairness characteristics.     

The Zeal of the Civil Advocate

This article is concerned with the accountability of the civil advocate for results obtained for a client. It distinguishes the criminal trial by arguing that for effective implementation the adversary system, as it is commonly understood, requires that the professional advocates be equally competent and equally adversary and that because it does not meet these criteria, the criminal trial cannot be looked to as a model either of the adversary system or of the behavior of advocates in the civil trial. Rules of behavior for the civil litigator should be drawn with the primary objective of ascertaining truth. Moreover, the civil litigator cannot claim immunity from moral accountability by reference to the lawyer's role; he or she is personally accountable for an immoral result obtained for a client. Seeking to avoid this accountability all lawyers might reject an immoral but lawful cause, so that persons with such causes would be deprived of professional representation. The conflict between the lawyer's personal morality and the social value of professional assistance is resolved by reference to a formula for assigning counsel similar to those in Mathews v. Eldridge and Lassiter v. Department of Social Services. The author analyzes the moral dilemma of a lawyer who is so assigned and proposes a solution.     

New Options for Lawyer Retirement Plans Under the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981

Recent changes in the tax laws governing retirement plans may offer significant tax advantages to lawyers and other self-employed persons. The author discusses the provisions of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 as they affect self-employed lawyers and compares them with the advantages that may be obtained by incorporation—both firm incorporation and individual incorporations within a firm. He explores a variety of tax issues, including important related Tax Court decisions, and makes recommendations with respect to adopting a strategy by a particular lawyer or firm.     

Aligning the Interests of Lawyers and Clients

The potential conflict of interest between lawyers and clientsis well known. If a lawyer is paid for his time regardless ofthe outcome of the case, the lawyer may wish to bring the caseeven when it is not in the best interest of the client, mayspend more hours working on the case than the client would want,and may reject a settlement when the client would be betteroff if it were accepted. Alternatively, if the lawyer is compensatedaccording to the conventional contingent fee arrangement—underwhich he is paid a fraction of any trial award or settlementbut bears all of the cost of litigation—the lawyer mayhave an insufficient incentive to bring the case, may spendtoo little time working on it if it is brought, and may encouragea settlement when the client would be better off going to trial.In this article we propose a method of compensating lawyersthat overcomes the conflict of interest between the lawyer andthe client. Our system is a variation of the conventional contingentfee system, but, in contrast to that system, we would have thelawyer bear only a fraction of the cost of litigation—thesame fraction that the lawyer obtains of the award or settlement.We demonstrate that when the fraction of the cost that the lawyerbears equals the fraction of the award or settlement that heobtains, he will have an incentive to do exactly what a knowledgeableclient would want him to do with respect to accepting the case,spending time on the case, and settling the case. Under ourmodified contingent fee system, a third party would compensatethe lawyer for a certain fraction of his costs, in return forwhich the lawyer would pay that party an up-front fee. In thisway, the client would not bear any costs, even if the case werelost, just as under the conventional contingent fee system.     

论辩护取证与侦查取证的关系

辩护取证和侦查取证构成了刑事调查的二元结构。在其相互制约中,可最大程度地接近案件事实。在研究犯罪嫌疑人辩护权与辩护律师相应权利的基础上,探讨新刑诉法实施后,辩护律师所具有的调查取证权利。律师还不能向警方申请阅卷,也不能在会见在押嫌疑人时向其核实证据;但在会见中,他们拥有不被监听的特权。而且,辩护律师有以"见证人"身份监督强制取证措施的权利。在监督侦查活动中,他们可以提出排除非法证据的要求。在侦查阶段,辩护律师的取证权,一般是外部调查取证权。辩护取证和侦查取证具有权属不同、手段多少不同、活动范围不同、活动的方向不同等特点,其体现的是控辩双方的法律制约与平衡。     

指定辩护律师作用之实证研究——以委托辩护为参照

对指定辩护律师的作用,现行法的质量标准是"客观职守型援助",而更高的要求是"合理有效性援助"。以D县为个案,通过与委托辩护律师的对比研究发现,指定辩护实践存在"作用阶梯"现象。从定量角度分析,指定辩护律师在庭审中表现明显不如委托辩护律师,后者相对积极;指定辩护律师在案件定性方面作用不大,较之委托辩护略有不如。而从司法人员的评价出发,指定辩护律师发挥的整体作用也不及委托辩护律师。究其原因,指定辩护律师介入诉讼时间过晚、刑事法律援助经费保障不充分、指定辩护质量监控机制偏于形式化是主要影响因素。进一步加强指定辩护律师的作用、提高其辩护效果,很大程度上也取决于这些内、外因素的调整与变化。此外,确立适当的改革目标也是不可或缺。     

中国刑事专家辅助人向专家证人的角色转变

中国的刑事专家辅助人具有既类似于律师又类似于鉴定人、证人的多重属性;围绕专家辅助人意见的性质,也形成了质证方式说、鉴定意见说、证人证言说等多种观点。角色定位上的混乱,不仅造成了独具特色的鉴定人与专家辅助人的双轨制,而且常常使专家辅助人意见的法庭采信陷入困境。从最高人民法院有关专家辅助人的新近规定看,专家辅助人的角色呈现出向专家证人转变的趋势。这种转变的核心要求,一是实现鉴定人和专家辅助人的诉讼地位平等,专家辅助人意见和鉴定意见在专家证言意义上的证据效力平等;二是使专家辅助人回归专家证人本色,将强加给专家辅助人的不合理的质证职责交还给律师、检察官;三是提高律师、检察官熟练运用交叉询问规则、对科学证据进行质证的能力,充分发挥法官的科学证据“守门人”作用,以适应事实认定科学化的需要。     

In the Interests of Clients or Commerce? Legal Aid,Supply, Demand,and ‘Ethical Indeterminacy’ in Criminal Defence Work

As a professional, a lawyer's first duty is to serve the client's best interests, before simple monetary gain. In criminal defence work, this duty has been questioned in the debate about the causes of growth in legal aid spending: is it driven by lawyers (suppliers) inducing unnecessary demand for their services or are they merely responding to increased demand? Research reported here found clear evidence of a change in the handling of cases in response to new payment structures, though in ways unexpected by the policy's proponents. The paper develops the concept of ‘ethical indeterminacy’ as a way of understanding how defence lawyers seek to reconcile the interests of commerce and clients. Ethical indeterminacy suggests that where different courses of action could each be said to benefit the client, the lawyer will tend to advise the client to decide in the lawyer's own interests. Ethical indeterminacy is mediated by a range of competing conceptions of ‘quality’ and ‘need’. The paper goes on to question the very distinction between ‘supply’ and ‘demand’ in the provision of legal services.     

Grade related changes in young people's reasoning about plea decisions

The present study examined the development of young people's ability to reason about legal issues involved in a plea decision in a criminal matter. Forty-eight subjects in each of grades 5,7, and 9, and 48 young adults participated in a semistructured interview containing four vignettes, each depicting a young person who had committed a criminal offense was charged, and retained a lawyer. Subjects received information regarding the charge and the prosecution's evidence (weak in half of the vignettes and strong in the other half). Subjects were asked to decide what they would plead if they were in the defendant's shoes, and to justify their choices. Contrary to prediction, a majority of even the Grade 5 subjects based their plea decisions on legal rather than moral criteria. Nonetheless, there were significant grade-related changes both in legal reasoning scores and in the use of guilt-based plea justifications. In addition, according to a panel of lawyers, subjects' plea choices were rated as more reasonable when the evidence against the story character was strong (and thus congruent with “moral” guilt) than when it was weak. This difference, diminished with grade as subjects became better able to separate moral from legal issues in their decision making.     

Deterioration or refinement? Impacts of an increasing number of lawyers on the lawyer discipline system in Japan

This paper discusses the impacts of an increasing number of lawyers (bengoshi) on the lawyer discipline system in Japan. Due to a relatively small number of lawyers up until the 1990s, few people, including citizens and lawyers themselves, cared about the misconduct of lawyers. However, there appears to be a recent change in this tendency. The sudden increase in the number of lawyers after the Justice System Reform in 2001 focused citizens’ awareness on quality in the practice of law. Some lawyers claim that the increase in the number of young lawyers has deteriorated the quality of legal services, thereby damaging public trust in lawyers. In this paper, I analyze lawyer discipline cases from 1988 to 2015 that are available to the public. The result shows that while the number of disciplinary cases actually has increased since 2004, it is not young lawyers but primarily experienced senior members who have contributed to the increase. In conclusion, I argue that an increase in lawyer discipline is a positive phenomenon for the Japanese bar in developing detailed ethical standards, thereby providing better legal services.